Bring It On! - Chapter 18

Chapter 18.

It wasn’t until I saw Jay slip the gun back into his back pocket that my frozen mind, paralyzed by shock, finally snapped back to reality. Once the dazed fog cleared from my vision, what followed was a dizzying surge of fury. My fists, curling slowly, trembled. Just like yesterday, why did no one seem to grasp the seriousness of our situation? 

It felt like I was the only one desperately clinging to survival here. A tangle of problems had been barely kept under control, and now the anxiety I’d been holding back exploded into rage.

I knew that if I opened my mouth now, nothing good would come out. But I couldn’t just let this slide, either. I ran toward Jay and Suho.

“Are you insane? Why was Suho holding the gun?”

“Why are you yelling at me like that? The kid’s the one who’s got sticky fingers.”

“Because you left it lying around! Did you forget I told you to keep it secured?”

“You told me to wash up, didn’t you? Should I have jumped in the water fully dressed with the gun strapped on me?”

“You could’ve put it somewhere out of sight! Why are you so careless? What if something had happened?”

“Well, did anything happen?”

Jay’s shameless retort, without a hint of apology, completely drained the last of my patience. My mind, which had been boiling hot just moments ago, began cooling rapidly. It was as if ice were taking over. 

I reached out and pulled Suho to my side. I didn’t even have the presence of mind to check his frightened, frozen face.

“If this is how you’re going to ‘cooperate,’ then figure out your own survival from now on.”

“…What?”

Jay’s eyebrows twitched.

“What, you don’t understand plain language now? Every single thing you do turns into a mess. What’s so valuable about you that we have to put up with this? If you screw up, at least apologize. I’m sick of tolerating your arrogance.”

I spewed out everything I’d been holding in. The words were so emotional I could barely register what I was saying. Jay made no move to interrupt, just stood there quietly, listening. 

A heavy silence fell between us. My heart pounded so hard it felt like it echoed in the veins near my temple.

The aggrieved expression on Jay’s face slowly faded. He looked different now. Cold even, like someone else. After a long pause, he muttered in a low voice.

“…I’ll go.”

He handed the gun to me. Then, without any sign of regret, he turned around and walked away. The crunch of grass and gravel under his feet echoed emptily in my ears.

***

The most effective healer of all wounds, be it a scar on the skin or a bruise on the heart, is time. And time always brings regret.

The shelter was unusually quiet, likely because Jay had left. Suho looked like he wanted to say something to me but couldn’t bring himself to speak. Instead, he lingered nearby. I ignored him completely and buried myself in building a new shelter.

My mind was a mess, so I kept pushing my body to its limits. Regret over my impulsive outburst crept in, but it was always drowned out by the fury that still clouded my head.

“Um, noona…”

“If you’ve got nothing to do, go boil some water.”

“…I’m sorry.”

A soft, tear-tinged apology slipped out. I set down the stone mallet I’d been using to hammer the wooden wall and turned to Suho.

“Sorry for what?”

Suho wiped at his eyes with his sleeve.

“The gun… I took it while Jay Hyung was washing up. I was gonna tease him. It wasn’t his fault, really.”

His sobs grew louder, probably thinking Jay had been kicked out because of him. I stood under the sunlight and looked down at the top of Suho’s dark head.

“…Alright.”

“I’m really sorry…”

“Stop crying. You’re losing water.”

“But…”

“Go boil the water.”

Suho nodded hard, face soaked with tears, and trudged back toward the shelter. His drooping shoulders and slow steps looked like they were crying along with him.

Once Suho had walked far enough away, I set the mallet down and sank to the ground. Frustration welled up inside me. Sure, Jay had been careless, but did I really need to drive him out of the shelter for that?

Let’s be honest. Was I truly that angry because of Jay’s mistake? Or was I just lashing out, petty and cowardly?

After a long time thinking, I admitted it was the latter.

The three people who had promised to send help were still completely out of contact. I didn’t trust them much, but they were our only hope. Lately, I couldn’t stop imagining the worst.

To make things worse, signs of an approaching typhoon had been constant, and we still hadn’t secured enough food. It felt like I was going to lose my mind.

The anxiety felt like a dozen knives pointed at my throat.

If Suho got sick on top of all this, then all the patience and hope I’d clung to so desperately might finally collapse. I couldn’t afford to fall into despair. I wouldn’t let myself.

So yes, I admit I became more sensitive and overprotective with Suho.

All the fear and anxiety that had built up inside me ended up being dumped entirely onto Jay.

He must’ve been having a hard time too.

He was stranded on an island without even knowing why, and had lost his memory.

It wouldn’t have been strange if he’d been overwhelmed with depression, pitying and resenting his own misfortune. But from the day he opened his eyes, Jay had been doing everything he could to escape the island.

That’s not an easy thing to do.

Jay could be picky, sure, but that didn’t mean he was sensitive or narrow-minded. Quite the opposite.

He might grumble, but he did what he was told. And if you poked at his pride just a little, he’d throw himself into work like his life depended on it.

Honestly, I’d even thought he was easy to handle.

“…So maybe I treated him too roughly.”

Maybe because he never showed even a trace of gloom, I subconsciously assumed it was okay to unload all my darkness on him.

But I went too far.

I buried my face in my knees and let out a long sigh.

“When he comes back, I’ll apologize.”

It wasn’t like I actually wanted Jay to leave.

It was just something I blurted out in the heat of the moment.

Once I admitted to myself how tangled my emotions were, my dizzy mind started to calm down little by little.

I stood up again. I still had things to finish before the sun went down.

*** 

“Noona, when’s hyung coming back?”

Night had fallen.

The sky was clear for the first time in a while after the heavy rain. Thanks to the big bright moon overhead, it wasn’t pitch black, but it was still night.

“Right? It’s not like he has anywhere else to go.”

I tossed a split log onto the campfire.

“Should we go look for him?”

“Since when did you like Jay so much? Just finish your dinner.”

Suho sulked as he gnawed at the fish.

My portion of rice was untouched.

As always, I was tired and hungry, but I just didn’t feel like chewing or swallowing anything.

I stretched my neck out and glanced around, almost out of habit. Jay was nowhere to be seen.

Should I really go look for him, like Suho said? First, I’d put Suho to bed, then grab a flashlight and head out.

“What if something happened to him?”

“…”

“What if he tripped and fell off a cliff? Or drowned? He can’t even swim…”

Suho kept listing terrible possibilities, and I found myself unable to sit and wait any longer.

Eventually, I stopped eating, went into the shelter, and came back out with a flashlight.

“I’ll go look for him. You finish eating and wait inside, okay?”

“Noona…”

“I’ll be right back.”

Once worst-case scenarios took root in my head, they grew quickly, until they felt like real events already happening.

I was about to take a step, driven by rising urgency….

“…?”

I spotted a familiar figure in the distance.

I raised the flashlight from the ground and pointed it up.

“Jay!”

Jay was running toward us, completely soaked. Without even thinking, I dashed toward him.

“What happened to you?! Did you really fall into the water?”

“Huh?”

I grabbed both of Jay’s cheeks and turned his face side to side. Jay looked a bit flustered by my sudden actions, but let me inspect him without resistance.

His face was smooth, without a scratch.

And his clothes weren’t wet with water. They were drenched in sweat.

“What the hell were you doing all this time?!”